Clare Francis

"Like a silent fall of snow; suddenly, the reader is enveloped... visually acute, skilfully written; it won't easily erase its tracks in the reader's mind." So writes Hilary Mantel in the scare quote on the front cover of this edition.

Cecilia Ekbäck has created a remarkable world in this strange and haunting novel. Part whodunnit, part coming-of-age story, part morality play, set in 1717 Swedish Lapland. Six homesteads are dotted around the looming Blackåsen Mountain. Settlers tell tales of the mountain: it was sacred to the indigenous Lapps before the Swedish Church demanded they renounce their "old ways". People have gone missing. And now two girls have found one of the settlers dead upon it. The other settlers say it must have been a wolf.

The girls' family has only just arrived from Ostrobothnia, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Bothnia. They are Finns. Paavo was a fisherman. Maija has a past too. Their daughters' grisly find launches Maija on a quest for the truth. What wolf wields a rapier?

Secrets reveal themselves like snowdrops. Something unspeakable is happening around Blackåsen. And there are people who want it to stay hidden...… (more)

Joe, who is struggling with his job with a high powered legal firm in London is faced with the task of attempting to find his childhood friend who disappeared 4 years previously.[return][return]There were a couple of plot threads, such as the relationship with the father, which seemed to be rather intense at the beginning of the story, but petered out 2/3rds of the way through. Seemed rather a waste in energy for it to go nowhere.[return]And I couldnt understand why they would turn to a solicitor to search for her, as it didnt appear they had gotten an investigator at any point.[return][return]An average story at best… (more)

Hugh Gwynne, in the middle of a court case, becomes obsessed with the idea that his wife, Lizzie, was killed by an arsonist. She had died in a fire at their home, a fire the police insisted was accidental, but nothing seemed to fit, there were too many things out of place.

In the meantime, his client, Tom Deacon, a war veteran claiming PTSD after a car crash in which he saw his daughter burned to death, is furious with Hugh because Hugh had revealed some negative information about Tom that threatens his case which had appeared headed for victory until an anonymous letter arrived with the information.

Hugh's son Charlie has a history with drugs and Hugh worries that perhaps one of his contacts had killed his wife. But she was also involved in finding a witness to a killing that she had stumbled on while working with her clients in the projects.

An interesting story that has less mystery and more a treatise on bereavement and obsession. Still, I would read more of her work.… (more)